Similar to people who are tone-deaf, tone challenged singers cannot or are unreliable at uttering tones that match the fundamental frequency of a tone emitted from another source or correspond to the sequence of tones of a familiar melody. However, unlike people who are tone-deaf, those who are tone challenged can distinguish whether a sequence of tones emitted from an external source (e.g. another singer or musical instrument) approximates the relative sequence of tones of a familiar melody. A person's utterances are a composite of multiple frequencies, primarily consisting of a “fundamental” tone and its harmonics. People who are tone challenged have difficulty determining if the fundamental tone from the spectrum of frequencies within their utterances corresponds to the tone they intended to utter. The condition of being tone challenged and tone deaf is generally not distinguished, and is colloquially referred to as “tin ear.” Thus, as an example of the tin ear condition, a singing instructor utters a note N and asks student singers to imitate her singing. Singers who have neither of these conditions can hear and discern the fundamental frequency within the note they utter and can easily tune their vocal cords to emit the note N. In contrast, singers who are tone challenged may be able to distinguish the frequency of the note N sung by the instructor and attempt to utter this note. But because the singer is tone challenged and has difficulty discerning the fundamental frequency in their own utterances, they are not able to imitate the note N sung by the instructor.
As such, a method and apparatus is needed to assist tone challenged singers to better discern the fundamental frequency in their voice utterances.